Coronavirus thread

[t0mby]

Almost feels like conditioning for martial law. The army is getting ready to roll out, popo will be patrolling the streets.... Bet I get stopped on the way to work on Thursday, or the way home.

[t0mby]

NZ rose by 40% today from 102 to 144. If everybody adheres to the lockdown rules we should start seeing a drop in increases in about 2 weeks (that's roughly how long it takes test results to come back). 4 cases out of those 144 are community spread so 140 are travel related. And if everyone does play by the rules then the lockdown will start being lifted through the country based on which towns are virus free. So far the town we stay in has no cases, but prior to 2 weeks ago before the expressway bypass opened, our town was a stopping point for tourists with all our bakeries and fresh seafood. Now it's bypassed the main road is all but dead so fingers crossed we don't get any cases.

With Aussies infected rising by 20% per day your Prime Minister is dicing with death, rolling the dice with your lives. It's better to have a period the f no work and financial hardship than have hundreds of thousands infected and an even more difficult battle to eradicate.

I don't think the world will ever be the same after this. It might look the same, but it won't feel the same.

[unfnknblvbl]

I don't think the world will ever be the same after this. It might look the same, but it won't feel the same.

Agreed. Now is the time to tear down the constructs that allow (encourage...) the kind of behaviour we're seeing; from landlords threatening to evict anyone who falls behind in their rent because they "should have found a more stable job" to edgelords thinking that they should try to spread the disease to minority groups, to politicians living in denial of obvious facts.

[unfnknblvbl]

Day two of working from home. The NBN shat itself for an hour. Gonna be a loooooooooooong six months...

[unfnknblvbl]

I smell war in the not too distant future.

[t0mby]

India locks down 1.3 billion people. How's ScoMo doing? Is he back from his holiday in Bali yet?

[Ambrose Burnside]

ScoMo's a fuckwit.

I still have to go into the office (state government) even though I work in policy. My wife also still has to go to work (teacher).

ScoMo's a fuckwit. The state premiers aren't much better.

Even Boris has locked things down. Fucking BORIS.

[stanard]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... ont-go-out" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Peppermint Lounge]

My partner got canned yesterday. Independent contractor working part time for small architect business so not unexpected. Still shit. We're luckier than most though. I've got friends with businesses who are fucked. Plenty of other people I know are wondering whether their jobs will hold.

[stanard]

Yep my neighbour lost his job, Swim coach (competitive). Lives on his own too

Wife and I are lucky - I WFH and her company seems like it will be deemed essential should there be a full lockdown.

[unfnknblvbl]

I work in essential services (I help manage the SA electricity network), so in theory I'm safe... But the workload has dropped tremendously, since nobody particularly wants to be moving house at the moment.

Also, electricity retailers are STILL trying to disconnect customers for non-payment and non-identification. It's fucking ridiculous.

My workload has dropped off so much, that even though I've only been at this place for 18 months, I've been tapped to take over some of my group manager's responsibilities. That then frees up some work for my colleagues, but even still I don't think there's enough to go around. People will be asked to stand down before long..

[guttermouth]

I work for a printing company. We print and post off council rates, water rates and other billing services. 4th installments for council rates start in about 2 weeks. They are still going ahead cause apparently we are an essential service.....i rekon there will be a lot of rate payers who will have problems paying on the due date

[Froggy]

Scomo can only do so much the states control in Australia control most of the hot areas, just like the bushfires but no people still yell at the Feds. Even if he does instruct to close schools, it's up to the Premier of each state to implement it if they want to, he could threaten financial punishment via GST or something to try and make them do it but I don't think he has the authority to override state gov.

It's a shit situation but the cure can rapidly be worse than the infection if we end up destroying people's lives, losing homes, lifetimes of building up businesses gone etc. There will come a point that a decision will have to be made to go back to work and hopefully we have enough data to be able to isolate the most at risk.

[unfnknblvbl]

Even if he does instruct to close schools, it's up to the Premier of each state to implement it if they want to, he could threaten financial punishment via GST or something to try and make them do it but I don't think he has the authority to override state gov.

Interesting that the Vic & NSW state premiers were arcing up to close schools on Sunday night but game out of it with no change. I suspect that the opposite of what you said is going on - Scotty from Marketing threatened to pull funding if schools closed...

[flipswitch]

Trump already wants everybody back at work, even if the professionals don’t agree with him.

No, he doesn't not agree,” President Trump says when asked if Dr. Anthony Fauci agrees with him on the need to reopen the economy soon by easing social distancing guidance amid COVID-19 crisis.

[Madmya]

I smell war in the not too distant future.

I'm worried about this too.

[Madmya]

I heard an expert on ABC News yesterday morning say he doesn't think schools should shut down until next week, warned against pulling the trigger too early.

This is an awfully hard time for all leaders around the world, no one is going to come out of this unscathed. I don't believe there is a perfect solution, just different kinds of misery. Xi Jinping and the CCP have a lot to answer for, however.

[unfnknblvbl]

Blaming China for all of this is just a distraction. The US government was briefed on this virus and its potential effects on the economy in January. Not just the president, but senators, and I believe the house as well. Their response? They dumped their stock holdings and lied to the public about the risks.

Everybody who did that, regardless of their political leanings should be up against the wall.

And I don't doubt something similar happened here, too.

[Madmya]

It never ceases to surprise me that people are willing to give China a pass on this.

[unfnknblvbl]

Really? What are we blaming them for, exactly?

[Madmya]

I dunno, maybe trying to coverup the outbreak and arresting and silencing doctors trying to get information out, you know, critical information for the world.

I'm not a conspiracy theorist but it's hard to accept that the primary whistleblower, aged just 33, is one of a very small percentage of patients of that age who didn't survive the outbreak. Later, more whistleblowers died. Apparently your chances of dying dramatically increase if you're old or a whistleblower.

[unfnknblvbl]

see, the danger of going "oh it's all China's fault" is that you then play right into the hands of people that are a) claiming that the Chinese developed the virus, and/or b) trying to distract from the actual issues right now.

Take for example in the USA we have Trump trying to get everybody back to work after Easter Sunday, or these outright idiots who are saying that it's better to have a few people die than hurt the economy, or the truly amazing claim made by one Republican that grandparents would rather die than let their grandkids live in a country with a ruined economy. But no, instead we're being asked to focus our critical energy on the Chinese when doing so right now would be fruitless.

Now is not the time for pointing fingers at what could have been done better in December 2019 and by whom. Now is the time to make sure the virus doesn't spread and have other knock-on effects on our economies. Now is the time for looking after our own and preventing further attacks from within. Like for example how in Australia the special panel set up for a response to all this doesn't have a single scientist on it, but plenty of mining company representation for some reason.

Lay blame later, after the dust has settled, and I'll join you.

[Madmya]

Facts are facts unfunk, I don't care whose hands it plays into.

But I agree with the rest. CCP will get what's coming to them, in time.

[unfnknblvbl]

Facts are facts unfunk, I don't care whose hands it plays into.

Attitudes like this result in acceptance of things like the Armenian Genocide, the Holocaust, the mass internment of Japanese Americans during WW2, blaming all vaguely middle-eastern looking people for terrorism, the current mass interment of immigrants in the US, and indeed, people blaming every day Chinese people living in their community for the spread of the virus.

[Ambrose Burnside]

Well I for one hope the Chinese police state cracks down on fucking wet markets with same vigour they show when they crack down on Uighurs, Hong Kong democrats, and people who share Winnie the Pooh memes.

Fucking cesspools and Communists.